Can you buy a $90 deer-killer anywhere else that is Minute of Buck accurate and will not fail under extreme weather/environmental conditions?

There are several problems related to storage (primarily cosmoline) that are common to all equipment stored for decades. MNs are no exception. The solutions to these issues are fairly easy to find on line.

Looking at it's historical record, I think that it was effective for Russian Sniper Vasili Zaitsev. At the Battle of Stalingrad he killed nearly 100 Germans including the Germans top sniper, Major Koning. He killed over 400 Germans during ths war. I guess it depends on who is pulling the trigger.

It's the same reason that British .303's and German 8mm Mausers were so popular in the early-mid 60's.

They weren't especially great tack-driving rifles either,,,
But you could order a .303 from Alden's Catalog for only $14.95,,,
The German 8mm Mauser was a bit more of an expensive gun at $19.95,,,
I mean if you wanted to go cheap, you could get a 7.7 Japanese rifle for only $9.95

Those guns and those low prices are gone now,,,
The replacement is the ba-jillions of Nagants that have hit the surplus market.

hello everyone im sorry if my post can across as being brash i did not mean it like that. i agree that for less than 100 dollars you cant go wrong. but around here in washington state a non war year mosin is often 150-175 dollars and i got my mauser for 190. Thanks to Twins for actually understanding my position!

I bought a number of Finnish Nagants and a few Soviet back when they were $69.00

I have had rim lock. Sometimes you get an interference between the cartridge stack and the round going into the chamber. I believe it is a combination of rim diameter and interrupter tolerance stack up.

Heck, I have had rim lock with my 375 H&H. The belt on the top round jammed on the rim of the round below it.

Rim lock is another good reason why rimmed rounds were obsolete the day the 8mm Mauser was introduced.

All my Nagants, including the M39's, have substandard trigger pulls. I recently handled some Finnish target rifles that had excellent pulls, I wish I knew what was going on under the wood. The trigger/sear mechanism on a Nagant while simple, is not simple to adjust to a fine trigger pull. The best I could do was swap sears out.

As for accuracy, Nagants do surprisingly well even when horribly bedded. With a good barrel they will shoot 3 MOA which is service rifle accuracy. Folks have this idea that service rifles are target weapons, accuracy the primary consideration. Accuracy was a consideration, along with others, and how accurate the rifle depended on how much weight was put on that factor. Based on an examination of old bolt gun performance, I believe 3 MOA was what most Militaries thought was an acceptable average. You have rifles like the K31 that are better, and you have some that shoot a little worse.

Pre WW1 infantry was expected to engage targets at ridiculous distances, just look at the rear sight elevations graduations for proof of that. What the military did was determine the target size and distance. If the target is a human, then the rifle has to hit the human at the specified distance. The target might be a human head, human torso, etc. Anyway if you thing you are going to hit a human at 1000-800 yards, then your rifle has to shoot something close to 3 MOA.

By the time you get to WWII, the military figured out the average infantry man could not hit a thing and 300 yards became the accepted combat space. AK’s are what 5-7 MOA?, just fine for untrained cannon fodder.

Hey, the Nagant is an 1880's design. It was was obsolete the day the M1892 Mauser was introduced in service but it still clunks on. It has proven itself reliable in every environmental condition on earth. It was killing Germans in the Arctic regions, it killed Americans in the swamps of Vietnam.

If you want more performance, you gotta pay more than $100.00 But for $100.00, a Nagant is a steal.

Jamming on feeding isn't only caused by rim lock. If the interruptor-ejector doesn't move freely for lack of oil or dried cosmoline, or the stock not being relieved for it it'll jam. Also, the Mosin Nagant should be operated with some gusto and not babied.
Once you understand the rifle and it's quirks, it is a good rifle.

Sorry for calling you a troll, it's just that you came off kinda strong against the Mosin Nagant in your first post in The Firing Lane, and it initially seemed more like a rant to get people riled up. Anyway, welcome to the forum. Hope you decide to stay.

I'm putting on a GSM Clinic on May 21st, I'm extending you an invitation to attend the clinic free of charge, bring your Mosin or use mine. I'll show you how to shoot it. Those suckers hold their own in the Vintage Rifle Matches.
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Hey craigwy-- I hate them thing to Is offer good to me too
Just kidding,,,Very nice offer you make.

I'm putting on a GSM Clinic on May 21st, I'm extending you an invitation to attend the clinic free of charge, bring your Mosin or use mine. I'll show you how to shoot it. Those suckers hold their own in the Vintage Rifle Matches.
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Hey craigwy-- I hate them thing to Is offer good to me too
Just kidding,,,Very nice offer you make.

Yeap it is. Actually I don't charge for my clinics unles you want CMP ammo furnished. Then I only charge actual cost of the ammo.

"Super-Accurate"?
I don't know what that is, but the MN would not qualify.

That being said, here is the MN sporter I've just finished:

And, these are the two groupings I shot with it, first time ever fired, SURPLUS ammo...

First seven shots, upper right. Couple of fliers, could've been me...
Dialed the scope down and left, all but two shots of the next ten were in the diamond.

Took it out to 225 yards a couple of weeks ago- with my first run of handloads. 6" plates, the rifle did not miss once I had zeroed the scope. Now, granted, all I can say from that is sub 3 MOA..but I will be taking paper as well as steel this weekend.

Since then, I've added a Limbsaver recoil pad and more importantly, a Timney trigger. I'm confident that with the handloads, the rifle will shoot 2 MOA or better, if I do my part.

"Super Accurate", hell no. We've got a .308 Savage and a .223 Remington 700 that'll embarass it. But that wasn't the point of my project. I wanted to see if I could build a "decent" long range rifle on the cheap, capable of ringing steel out to 600-800 yards. The 7.62 x 54R is easily capable of precision at that distance.

I've got a fun-to-shoot, durable rifle for not much $$ (well, not including the Vortex glass ) that's way more accurate than "minute of deer".

Everyone needs to bear in mind that shooting these rifles outta their crappy wood original stocks cannot be compared to a modern rifle in it's stock.
Put it in a Boyd's (or other aftermarket) bed the action and install pillars, free-float the barrel- and you've got a whole different rifle.

IMO, the most important thing is to have a nice shiny bore, with well defined lands. Mine was a plain, re-arsenaled 91/30. Slugged the bore ( a requirement for handloading) and it eats up .311 Matchkings...

For collectors, bore/chamber condition is a consideration, not an overriding factor.
If you want a shooter, it's the main consideration, IMO.

I don't appreciate being called a troll. Also i wasn't saying this forum specifically thought the mosin was great that just seems to be the consensus online. Also i love the 7.62 x 54 round just don't like the gun that shoots its. except a dragunov. BTW i know about rimlock but to me a military rifle should be reliable out of the box.

It's not out of the box. This Rifle is 70+ years old. Having been a military rifle, it has probably gone through a lot of wear and tear. My M38 kicks like a mule, but that one is pretty accurate. I've taken it on elk hunting trips and I've read stories about people hunting bear with them. It's a rugged rifle that gets the job done. May not be as accurate as a Remington 700, but that's not what it was designed to be.

As far as accuracy goes, the links below show that these two men would beg to differ. Simo Häyhä in fact recorded the most sniper kills of any major war with his mosin nagant. Just because you have two that you might not shoot well doesn't disqualify the millions of other nagants that were made.

I have a no 4 Enfield and a mosin nagant the Enfield feels like a feather compared to the m-n , accuracy of both seem about the same. I haven't done a side by side shoot with them. Now the mosin is in better condition but the Enfield has been in my family for almost a half century.

I looked up that info. on wikipedia and it's very impressive. If this is a 3 MOA rifle how could three shots kill tree Germans at 800m ?

If all rifles had to meet a 3 MOA standard, just due to the variences in manufacturing some rifles are going to be 3 MOA rifles, others less than 3 MOA. Might even be a 1 MOA rifle just to the luck of the draw.

It is entirely possible that sniper rifles were above average.

At 800 yards, 3 MOA is 24 inches. Think you could hit a 24 inch target at 800 yards? If the shooter is experienced and has good wind dope and elevation, I believe it can be done.

Besides, I meet people in the store who are way over 24 inches wide. Maybe these were extra large Germans in those trees.

Although I am a Mauser fan and 90% of my rifles are made from them, I find nothing really wrong with the MN. Ive seen its accuracy vary anywhere from 2" to 4" depending on condition of the rifle.

The cartridge is quite capable for hunting purposes. If you can bring it down with a 30-06, you can also bring it down with the MN.

There are a lot of aftermarket items that you can purchace to enhance the looks and the accuracy of the rifle. Doing some of this can be quite entertaining and give you hours of pleasure not to mention that ammo is quite cheap and they are enjoyable to shoot.

For someone just getting into hunting and shooting it allows them to do so without a lot of expense and can be upgraded a bit at a time.

To sum it up, there is nothing like having a Fararri, but an old Chevy or Ford truck can usually get the job done.

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